It’s a Trap (But It Doesn’t Have to Be): Having Fun with NaNoWriMo

We’re halfway through the month, and it’s easy to forget one of the key aspects of NaNoWriMo. Yes, we’re writing a ton of words, yes we’re toiling in pursuit of abstract and extrinsic goals, yes we’re spending a month pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into a piece of creative work… But we’re also supposed to be having fun!

In this post, NaNoWriMo Participant Matisse Mozer reminds us of that important fact:

NaNoWriMo is fun. 

Say it again. 

Not ‘NaNoWriMo is supposed to be fun.’ 

Not ‘NaNoWriMo should be fun.’

NaNoWriMo. Is. Fun. 

Even if writing itself isn’t all fun and games, NaNoWriMo is a chance to take so many of the humdrum parts of the craft and toss them aside. The pressure to make something presentable? That pesky internal editor? That pile of laundry that you just now want to put away? Shut ‘em all up. 

See all of your artist buddies doing Inktober, furiously scribbling away like there’s no tomorrow? Well, November is our turn, fellow writers. 

Time to have some fun as you get words down, no strings attached. 

We all know that week one is the long, awkward first date with your book. It’s fun learning about all these new heroes and villains as they’re birthed into your Scrivener document. Even if they don’t all make sense at first. (They won’t.) 

Somewhere around week two, you’ll hit your stride. Your cast of characters will gel as they bounce off the page. You might even find that Character A and Character B don’t belong together, and that Character A should be dating Character D. 

But wait, the people you were basing Character D and E off of in real life? (Because be honest, writers. Those are real people you’re putting into prose.) They’re having a real-life family drama that you can totally put in your book! 

You might even go to a write-in after work, just to cheer on other writers!

It’s a pretty good time, am I right? 

…But then, if you’re anything like me, you get one thought that poisons the word well that is NaNoWriMo. 

The poison apple. 

The mole in the INF. 

You think, “This is coming out pretty good. Maybe I should take this draft seriously.” 

Say it with me, writers and one-time Admiral Ackbar impersonators: IT’S A TRAP. 

This is the trappiest trap to have ever trapped, and I will tell you why. 

Look back at the first two weeks of writing that you’ve gotten down. When you were having fun with your screaming bundle of words, did you care that you introduced an entire sub-species of aliens that will never appear again? Of course not. When you threw in Character D during a booze-fueled write-in, did you even notice that the character is literally Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries, just with a different name? No way, jose. 

But now that you’ve decided to take your draft seriously…oof.

That sub-species of aliens has to come back in the third act, because otherwise you have to revise them out of the first. Mr. Somerhalder has been one-note this entire manuscript…maybe you can make him into an alien? But that means all of his dialogue needs to be re-done to foreshadow this and…Hey, who invited Internal Editor back in the room? 

While Internal Editor is screaming at the manuscript, maybe it’d be a good time to fold that laundry pile…

This, dear writer, is how your NaNoWriMo project dies a painful, drawn-out death. 

The fun is gone.

R.I.P. NaNoWriMo project 2019. Maybe you’ll have better luck next year.

Or? 

Or, you can prevent this horrible fate right here and now. 

It doesn’t matter if your NaNoWriMo project turns out to be good, just like it doesn’t matter if the project turns out badly. That’s a question for January, when you come back and look at your work with fresh eyes. 

You might find that your project, while fun to write, was nearly incomprehensible. Bootleg Ian Somerhalder was really, actually the protagonist all along! Meaning, you need to re-write the book. 

Or, you might find that everything was great! It just needs some fine-tuning. Time to re-write the book. 

No matter what, you’ll be re-writing this manuscript. 

But that’s the prize for NaNoWriMo: having a manuscript to revise. 

Consider the alternative: you got stuck in week three because now there’s pressure to write a real, workable draft…and you didn’t finish. 

That sounds like a writer without a manuscript to re-write. 

Even worse, that sounds like a writer who’s not having fun. 

And if we’re not having fun, fellow writers…why are we here?

Matisse Mozer is a writer and librarian living in lovely Los Angeles, California. When he’s not writing, posing his imported action figures, or reading comics, he’s on Twitter and Instagram as @doodletisse.

Top image licensed under creative commons from Reiterlied on Flickr.